Recently I saw "The dark room of Damocles" (1963, Fons Rademakers) after the famous novel of the same name by Willem Frederik Hermans.
My expectation was that "Abel" (1986, Alex van Warmerdam) was inspired by another famous novel of Dutch literature: "The evenings" by Gerard Reve. In this novel a 23 years old man gives a description of the petty bourgeoisie of his parents.
The opening scene of "Abel", which I must have seen beforehand and which created the expectations just described, is about a Christmas breakfast of Abel with his father and his mother. In this scene Abel is defying his father in a very sneaky way. Abel is played by director van Warmerdam himself and has, it must be said, a voice that sounds just like that of Gerard Reve.
Soon after the first scene it becomes evident however that the focus is just as much on Abel as on his parents. Abel is autistic to the highest degree and hasn't been outside the house for more than 10 years. In a scene not long after the opening he is investigated by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is evidently a caricature, but his diagnosis is not: the father is ashamed of his son and the mother is too protective.
In the course of the (absurdist) film the struggle between the father and mother about Abel is converted into a struggle beteween the mother and a girlfriend about Abel on the one hand and a struggle between Abel and his father about the girlfriend on the other hand.
"Abel" was the debutfilm of Alex van Warmerdam and it was an unexpected success. In "Abel" van Warmerdam introduced an absurdist style that remained his trade mark ever since. For me he is the Dutch David Lynch. Look at the "herring scene". A very strange combination of typical Dutch on the one way and absurdist on the other.
